


Habits

by sekiharatae



Series: Day to Day Life [31]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-13
Updated: 2009-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:26:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25582060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sekiharatae/pseuds/sekiharatae
Summary: Cloud discovers that couplehood changes your perceptions.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Series: Day to Day Life [31]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1794073
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	Habits

**Author's Note:**

> For Fanfic50 on Livejournal. Prompt: #022: Grin

Cloud was aware, in a vague sense, that it was... normal... to find the things your significant other did adorable. He’d overheard snippets of conversation in the bar where men and women confessed to their best friends how much they liked it was when so-and-so did something-or-other. The time he heard a kid exclaiming about how great it made him feel that his girlfriend couldn’t wake up in the night without kissing him on the cheek, for example. He’d rolled his eyes in response, thinking how impractical a habit it was: most people didn’t like being startled awake, even if it _was_ with a kiss.  
  
At any rate, even knowing it was a common lapse in judgment, he’d never experienced it firsthand. Not until he returned home after Sephiroth’s attempted advent, and his relationship with Tifa changed. For the better. Closer. They were a couple in reality, instead of only in their imaginations and in the way others perceived them. They were talking more, and learning more about each other.  
  
Which was how he first became aware of one of Tifa’s more amusing habits: she liked to send little messages along in his lunch box. About once a week his delivery schedule would take him to an out-of the-way destination, where the opportunities to stop for a local bite were few and far between. On those occasions, Tifa would pack him a lunch, and it was always far better than anything he could get on the road, even in a place as rich with culture as Kalm. If it weren’t for the fact that he didn’t want to create more work for her, he’d ask her to make his lunch every day. As it was, she always put enough food in a single packet to feed him _and_ Cid _and_ Barret, and tended to include something from every food group. That was just Tifa. Well aware that his mako-fueled system burned through calories at an accelerated rate, she was always trying to stuff him full of his favorites. Given the variety she fit into the plain black box, maybe that was the point of the messages: to call attention to the healthier snack choices. Because whatever the reason behind the notes, she didn’t just write them on a piece of paper and slip it in among the carefully wrapped sandwiches. No, if she packed him an orange, it would have a face drawn on it, with a bubble to the side telling him to drive safe. If she packed a banana, it would have a message telling him to smile, or perhaps a simple, ‘Love You!’ scrawled along the side. Apples were somewhat more problematic – as the skin was edible – but she’d been known to peel smiley faces and hearts into them, coating the exposed fruit with something that kept it from turning brown, and left behind a faintly lemony taste.  
  
The whole idea was completely ridiculous, absolutely endearing, and never failed to make him smile. The shy, pleased grin that was almost exclusively just for her.  
  
When she drank hot cocoa or, sometimes, coffee, she used coffee stirrers like chopsticks to eat the whipped cream off the top, and that made him smile, too. If it was store bought rather than homemade, he’d ask for extra when he ordered, just so he’d have more time to watch her do something so... cutely silly. Marlene had also picked up the habit, and that somehow just made it better. More homey. More _them_. This was the way things were done at their house. And he liked it.  
  
He liked the way she wrapped herself in his clothes when she was feeling blue. She said it helped chase the bad things away, whether those things were emotions, memories, or germs. Finding her curled up in bed wearing one of his old t-shirts never failed to make him feel wanted and welcome. Needed. And he’d hold her, knowing that would help chase away the unwanted melancholy, too.  
  
Since the two of them were the only ones who would ever know – and he really didn’t care one way or the other, unless going without was an option – Cloud was amused that her bra and panties absolutely _had_ to match. Always. Even if she was just going to spend the day cleaning house. And he loved it when she cleaned house, because she always wore the rattiest clothing she could find. Currently, her house-cleaning apparel consisted of a t-shirt so soft and thin as to be almost threadbare, and a pair of cut-offs Marlene had helped her make. There was a hole in the back pocket that went all the way through, and the little girl’s scissors had slipped, making them the shortest pair of shorts Cloud had ever seen. Combined with the t-shirt, knotted under her breasts, it was one of his favorite outfits. It was a mystery to him whether Tifa knew the kind of show she gave him when she wore it. Probably. That she continued to wear it just made its innocent seduction even more effective.  
  
She wore her hair knotted on top of her head when she paid bills, or took inventory, or balanced the accounts, and it always ended up in a lopsided pile, slightly off-center, by the time she was finished. She threw popcorn at the TV screen if the dialogue in whatever she was watching turned campy. She swore by a spoonful of sugar to cure the hiccups.  
  
And if she woke up in the night, she always gave him a kiss on the cheek. In return, he would grin his special just-for-Tifa grin, and turn his head to catch her lips with his, causing her to laugh, just a bit.  
  
“I love when you do that.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by [](https://amethyst-key.livejournal.com/profile)[](https://amethyst-key.livejournal.com/)**amethyst_key** , who was feeling under the weather, and asked for Cloud thinking that a habit of Tifa's is incredibly adorable.


End file.
